Good work, it was better than the first Smog. I'm happy to see that the article I suggested for the first issue was so popular. Why weren't Latios and Latias included in the list of Pokemon created to troll us? They're very hard to catch without a Master Ball in-game and even then have low IVs. Even though they are good in competitive battling they require the Eon Ticket event (which most people can't get) to obtain in a usable form. And in-game they always use Psychic to KO your Mean Look Crobat...

Not ass kissing but awesome job on the smog issues, I got a few of my friends that thought pokemon was just a kiddy game they went “wtf ?!” in aw at the amount of math and planning that goes into completive pokemon teams, it would be awesome if Nintendo picked it up as an actual magazine, though they would edit out the trolling page, Nintendo is like the government when it comes to hiding the truth +_+

I thought it was great overall, and I loved the "Top 10 Trolls" section. But I was disappointed by the choice of featured pokemon, though the article itself was excellent. Perhaps next time a light could be shined on a bit of a dark horse, lesser-used OU pokemon, such as Forretress, Breloom, or Togekiss, which have gifts that often go overlooked. Or the article could explore the fall of dudes such as Dusknoir and Alakazam, with some comments on how they can still be potent forces.

The metagame analyses were well done. 9.5/10.0 IMO.

EDIT: What I said may have been ambiguous: I wasn't too fond of the decision to pick Salamence as the Featured Pokemon, though the article was well done anyways.

The trolling article was actually my least favorite part of this issue. I guess I was just expecting something else when I read "Is Gamefreak trolling us" on the front page. Maybe a mention of how certain pokemon continue to get worse or get the shaft with each gen.

The 'top 10 trolls' list as it was just seemed silly. And while I don't mind silly, I prefer it if it's going to be funny. The article was fairly "meh" all around. I know I don't share the popular opinion in this instance. :C

Everything else I enjoyed. Kudos all around to those involved, even with the parts I didn't like.

Maybe I'm just being nitpicky, but there were a number of spelling/grammar errors/typos (most apparent in the Successes at VGC article) which, while they in no way detracted from the overall quality of the article, were occasionally distracting.

Jimbo and darkie I think he means featured pokemon in the troll section; you greatly overestimate his or her intelligence, as this person wanted us to muse about the nature of natural metagame shifts in an article about which pokemon were born trolls or not.

Jimbo and darkie I think he means featured pokemon in the troll section; you greatly overestimate his or her intelligence, as this person wanted us to muse about the nature of natural metagame shifts in an article about which pokemon were born trolls or not.

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Perhaps I was unclear. I meant that I felt another pokemon should have been featured over Salamence IMO. Sorry for any confusion.

The one thing that really got on my nerves (Jimbo already knows this) was the grammatical, structural, and punctuation errors of the "In Depth" section of the Ubers RMT. I can understand a few typos, but when every other "I" is written "i", I have a problem. Hell, nearly every instance where a proper noun should be used, it was ignored.

This, of course, is no slap at the article itself. It was well written (august's part, at least), but came off uncharacteristically unprofessional for Smogon.

None of them do. If you were trying to mean flash fire, it says here: http://www.serebii.net/abilitydex/flashfire.shtml that if the ability is traced, the pokemon can be burned by will-o-wisp. It can also be burned by tri-attack (ingame knowledge). White Smoke prevents stat's from being lowered, blaze powers up fire moves, magma armor prevents freeze, and oblivious prevents attraction.

Otherwise, great issue. Loved it. Hilarious. 5/5, etc.

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That's only true for Advance, where Will-O-Wisp does not activate Flash Fire. In DP, WoW activates the ability, making Flash Fire Pokémon imune to burn.

As a player just getting into real Pokemon, the metagame and RMT articles were extremely helpful in getting started. Maybe now I can get to work making a team with more thought than "Stealth Rocker, Sweeper A, Sweeper B, Wall A, Wall B, Rapid Spinner", which is what I have now. It seemed so overwhelming and I didn't really know where to start, but good ol' Smog #2 has shown me the way! Thanks a ton!

I didn't find the trolling article as hilarious as everyone else did, but it was good for a few laughs. Electrode was the best. I always wanted to hack a hand grenade painted like Voltorb/Electrode into the game and throw it at a wild one when it ambushed me. Let's see how YOU like it!!

About the VGC part: drug_duck placed second in Berlin and Honchkrow won Paris.

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I missed Honchkrow, it appears it was mentioned in three posts with a single line and amongst the hundreds of posts I missed it. It also wasn't mentioned on any of the main posts until after the article was completed, so I missed it.

But seriously, this issue has lots of typos. And a few mistakes.
For instance:
"Which of these abilities prevents burn status?
Flash Fire
White Smoke
Blaze
Magma Armor
Oblivious"
None of them does. :| All of them can get burned by Tri Attack, according to Smogon's info.
Is it a trick question? Or did you get help from serebii for this article?